I normally do not get into discussions about the real estate world on this blog…but I thought I would take a few minutes to discuss my thoughts on Zillow’s announcement.
Today Zillow announced that they are opening up the site to brokers, agents, and anyone who owns a home to list their home for sale – for free. This is a move many anticipated – and now it is reality.Â
So what does this mean? It does not mean much for LakePlace.com (the majority of our listings are not in the Zillow database – yet – when they are, we will definately consider using their service!) – but it is probably scaring the pants off of Trulia.com – a real estate website that raised about $8M earlier this year. You see, Zillow has a much larger war chest, a much more experienced management team, a much more robust website, a much larger database of real estate info, a much larger user base…and now they will be competing on Trulia’s home turf. While trulia is celebrating a milestone – many are predicting a slow (or not so slow) and painful death.
What about the agents, also? Agents have long survived and thrived on the being the exclusive providers of houses for sale information. An industry report by Swanepoel says that the Internet has changed all that. So what does that mean for us homebuyers? Lower commissions maybe?
[...] I have to mention that the folks at Zillow are also monitoring the results closely. Zillow, without a doubt, has the best evangelist and outreach team in the business. I am not sure what their final revenue model will be (I am a born skeptic), but they definitely stay on top of their stuff. [...]
[...] Zillow.com – the online real estate “zestimator” has decided that the time was right to make another big move. They made a small announcement on their blog today asking mortgage brokers to move into their camp. [...]